Jean-François Belisle

Director and Head Curator

Director and Head Curator of the Musée d’art de Joliette since April 2016, Jean-François Bélisle has previously curated a important number of regional, national and international contemporary art exhibitions. He has also published a number of essays and exhibition reviews in national and international publications, and has occupied managerial positions in the visual arts world in numerous countries since the mid 1990’s. Former Director of the contemporary art foundation Arsenal in Montreal and Toronto, he has also worked at the Association des galeries d’art contemporain (AGAC) in Montréal, the Sotheby’s Auction House in Geneva, the Nart in New York, the UNESCO in Paris, the Prince of Asturias Foundation in Oviedo, as well as the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, the McCord Museum, the Ciel Variable Magazine, and the Iegor Auction House, in Montreal. The most recent exhibitions and projects presented at Arsenal, he curated or collaborated on, include: Prism, a selection of recent works by the English-Canadian artist David Spriggs, in 2015, E-Merge, an exhibition produced in collaboration with C2 Montreal on new media artists, in 2015; Ateliers TD, a mentoring program that was documented by ARTV and broadcasted as a television series under the title of ‘Les contemporains’, in 2014; Next, an exhibition regrouping twenty of the most promising young artists in the United States, in 2014, and Like Thunder Out of China, an exhibition of young Chinese contemporary artists, in 2013.